


Only The Gods Would Know

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [226]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, General!Thor, Gods, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 06:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17657354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The rooms of the garrison were warm, the sort of stone-baked heat that made Thor want to crawl out of his skin.





	Only The Gods Would Know

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Ancient Rome. Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

The rooms of the garrison were warm, the sort of stone-baked heat that made Thor want to crawl out of his skin. Life back inside the walls of the city was sitting with him poorly enough; being trapped in the oven of his official quarters was far, far too much. Never mind that the Senate had asked him to; never mind that his own particular patron, Heimdall, had basically ordered him thus. He was a hero, or so the people had decided, and that popularity was proving both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because there was no question his position as the garrison’s general would go unchallenged; a curse because that same acclaim had only tightened his enemies’ teeth and made them more determined to see that he did not live this year out. He might be able to survive the Spartans, to lead the legions in conquest, but the long knives of official Rome, Thor had learned, were just as deadly and far, far harder to avoid.

So he had promised the Senate and sworn to Heimdall that he would stay here the week, stay here amongst the clamor and protection of his own men until his enemies’ loyalty had been given proper succor in the form of gold and slaves and promises to indulge their pet Senatorial whims. It was far too high a price to pay _,_ he’d told Heimdall, arms crossed in unhappy surrender.

His patron had only smiled, a deadly serious thing that made those who knew better shrink back in fear. _So, dear boy, is your life._

It had been many years since Thor was a boy; many more since he would have allowed anyone--no matter how noble, how powerful--to refer to him thus. Had the word come from the lips of another man, even in the chamber of the Senate itself, Thor would have drawn his dagger and ensured it could never do so again. But Heimdall was the one who had saved him, the one who had seen in the light eyes of his new and shaking slave a power that Thor himself would never have guessed he possessed. It was Heimdall who had freed him from unwilling servitude and put a sword in his hand, who had taught him to read and to write, who had treated him as he would have his own son. Perhaps even better.

By ten, Thor was riding with him to battle; by twelve, he had slain his first man. By fourteen, he was a full member of the garrison, living and sleeping and training alongside fully grown men, and when Heimdall had set his sword aside and answered the city’s call to join the Senate, there had been no question but that Thor, himself barely 20, would be the one to succeed him.

A decade had passed, a third of Thor’s life, and now he was as revered as Heimdall himself had once been--a reverence that had, for the next few days at least, rendered him a prisoner in his own home.

The hours passed and the sun stretched her furious arms wide overhead and the sounds of the garrison gave way to the buzzing of flies, the dull echo of a city baked in its own heat; even the strongest among them, the most hearty, were not so foolish as to train when to breathe itself was akin to suffocating.

 _I have to_ , Thor thought, pacing about his little room faster, sweat slipping from his temple to his face, _I have to get out of here. Now._

And then there was a voice in his mind, a thought, that was new, that did not feel like his own: _The sea_ , this voice whispered, so like the sink of the waves. _Leave here, warrior, and rest your feet in the sea_.

The sea? He could not recall the last time he had sought its succor, found respite in the sound of water meeting rock. As a child, Heimdall had taken him there often, encouraged him to run up and down sandy stretches, taught him how to swim, how to climb the most perilous juts of rock. And Heimdall’s wife had been still alive then, hadn’t she? Sweet Freya. She who had read to him and listened patiently to the stories of his day and sat quietly with him when he cried tears he was too proud to let Heimdall see. When they had traveled to the sea, she hadn’t lain in her litter like the other ladies, shielding herself from the sun; she had tied up her skirt and flashed Heimdall a smile and plunged with the men and children into the surf.

Thor swayed a little, overtaken for a moment by his memories. When had he last thought of Freya? Gods, it had been ages. She’d died when he was fifteen; they’d been away on a raid, then halfway home again when the news had come, a messenger riding from the city full out. Her heart had given out, the healers had told them; she’d lain her head down in bed and never found cause to awake.

 _She is with the gods now_ , Heimdall had told him, his hand gripping Thor’s shoulder as if it were the only thing allowing him to stand. _No longer ours, my boy, but part of the world again, like the wind and the sea._

The sea, Thor thought again, as if the idea had been his alone. Yes, it would be a hard ride, a long one, and traveling across the verdant hills beyond the city walls, he would be completely exposed. And yet he was moving already, collecting a saddle bag and filling it with sundries, two skins full of water. A change of tunic and a fistful of dried, gnarled meat. There would be the small matter of evading his own guards, his usual traveling retinue, but already his mind had moved past them, slipped of its own accord to the stables, to his steed, to the cracks in the afternoon stillness the beast’s hooves would bear

The sea. He would go to the sea. And there, for this day at least, he would find freedom and peace.

 

*****

He knew he was nearly there when the land began to tip downwards, when the swells of the land begin to sink, as if the world itself were going flat. His horse knew it, too; raised her ears and her sweat-stroked head and found a new vigor, a new pace. Thor smiled and turned his face to the sky, to the blue soaked stretch far above.

 _Thank you,_ he thought. _Thank you, Gods_.

They had seen no one on their journey, though that had been very much by design. The city itself had been aslumber, dulled to somnolence by the terrible heat. Even the men at Rome’s gate--the smallest and most poorly guarded, mind--had barely stirred when he had raised his hand and commanded them to open the gate. And the countryside, it had been far less green that it had seemed upon his return only a few short days before. The land itself seemed to have withered, flattened by the harsh whims of the sun.

He saw no one and counted himself lucky; did not consider the matter more than that.

Once the sea was in sight, the dull roar of its blue and white fury louder than the pound of his own breath, he laid his heels to the horse and together, single-minded, they flew.

He grew impatient as his horse threaded the rocks, picking her way carefully down the last steps to the beach, and when she at last stepped into the sand, he was off her back in an instant and plunging pell mell towards the promise of cool water, the salty sweet bite of the waves. He stripped off his weapon, his tunic, his sandals, tossing them away careless and threw himself at the sea.

The relief was instant, like a full body salve, and he cursed as he lifted his head above the surface, groaned as if each slap of the water were the hands of a lover, each splash a wild, hungry kiss--though he had never let any creature, man or woman, ever touch him thus. He knew some of his soldiers thought him mad when it came to the ways of the flesh; they celebrated victory, the successful return from battle, with the activity that reminded them most of what it meant to be alive. In sex, in the sharing of bodies, his men found great pleasure; he could understand that. But for him, sex had only ever been a matter of release, a way of alleviating certain pressures of his body that he otherwise could not slake. There was the pleasure of tension sated, that was true, but never had he found fucking to be all that interesting, frankly, no matter how lovely his companion, no matter how skilled at their craft. And so he had long ago abandoned the brothels, long since given up on pursuing marriage in any serious way. When the pressure came now, he saw to it himself; it was far simpler, the act itself more compact.

What was it, then, about the waters now that was making every inch of his heated flesh sing?

He ducked again beneath the waves and let the sea slake its nails down his back, ripple eagerly over the curve of his ass, and when he found air again, he was undeniably hard and his hand was upon it and he could think of nothing as he bobbed in the cool waters except of his need to spill, of how good it would feel to find release.

There was no one about, no one for miles, and on the beach he could see that his horse had found a shadowed place, an overhang of rock beneath which she rested, so what matter was it then if he pleasured himself beneath the sun, in the arms of the ocean? Only the gods would see him. Only the gods would know.

He let himself drift back towards the shore, to a place where his feet could find sand, and then he threw his head back and jerked himself faster, cried hoarse into the the still, sullen heat. His mind was a tumble of energy, of pictures, of flashed imaginings that his mind had filed away: the bare breasts of a maid, the soft mouth of a boy he’d passed on the street; the fat cock of one of his soldiers, the eyes of a Senator’s wife raking down his body, the catch of her indecorous breath. The waves echoed in his ears and his cock swelled in his fist and he closed his eyes and gave himself over to it, the call of his body, the small, hot desires of his mind.

 _Come_. That voice in his head again, the one that was not his. The one that had driven him, lured him, to make a mad rush to the sea. _Give yourself this, Thor. Come. Let me see._

He came in one long, furious punch, came with a roar even the sea could not swallow. His balls jerked and his cock shook and the world went white for a moment; sanded away at the edges until all that was left was a beautiful, blinding light.

When he could open his eyes again, when his body would obey his commands, he staggered half-drunk towards the shore. He felt renewed, he felt refreshed. He felt very like a new man.

So broad was his smile, so happy his body, that he almost missed the slim figure standing stock still on the sand. He was a young man, not much more than a boy; dark hair and pale skin with a bucket and spade in his hand and an expression so scandalized that it brought Thor to a halt.

 _Excuse me_ , the boy said, very nearly indignant. _What do you mean doing something like that on my beach_?


End file.
